What not to do in marketing when you run a business (and not just a vegan one)

A question that Desiree Dupuis asked me when I did my Planted Expo Vancouver talk inspired this blog. I had shared marketing tips for vegan businesses, but she asked, “Are there things we should not do in marketing?”

I said that aside from not sharing your story enough, if you intentionally (or even unintentionally) offend a particular group, that could qualify as a do-not-do…even though as vegan companies, we want to shake things up for omnivore consumers and get them to not eat animals and eat more plants and fungi!

That was the first thing I thought of, but as more time passed, I thought I should share what I would have really wanted to say if I had more time. So here’s that blog! Interestingly, all the “don’t’s” I share here touch on inclusive and ethical marketing and vegan marketing.

1. Not sharing the company’s values

This is probably what 80% of companies are doing, from solopreneurs to the corporations that run the world. If you don’t stand for anything, you’re relying on the quality and uniqueness of your product/service and the content you share to retain consumers. And there’s already a goddamned lot of businesses and content out there.

Sharing your values, your WHY, your origin story, and your vision and mission are just a few ways you can start doing this. Then pick the causes that are most important to you and make those a part of your content storytelling strategy. From Black History Month to Pride Month, there’s something to support each month. It may not be realistic to support ALL of them, but you can certainly support some.

If you don’t share your values, when world events—like the Black Lives Matter protests during the pandemic—occur and there is a call to action to post something online to support that cause, doing so may seem disingenuous or appear performative, and that can backfire with your audience if they see executives or employees acting in a way that goes against what the company appears to support online.

I saw one instance of this when a former supplier of a local company who identifies as a Black female shared how she was treated by the founder/executives online, screenshots and all.

I wrote in the Diversity & Inclusion chapter of my book: “Running an ethnic vegan restaurant without a person of that ethnicity in the kitchen or as a consultant is cultural misappropriation—or it may be seen as such if customers aren’t told why those representatives are absent. A vegan business whose staff have sexist attitudes and behaviours or create an unsafe work environment for women won’t help our cause in freeing mother cows. Sexual harassment charges result in legal fees and the cost of staff who must spend time managing problems caused by offenses rather than helping animals. Most vegan activists will tell you that the issues we hope veganism will solve are intersectional and can’t be ignored. Being vegan or running a vegan business doesn’t excuse people from being called out on unacceptable behaviour.“

When a vegan company is intentionally vegan or vegan-owned, supporting animal rights and welfare and sharing why animal testing and consumption are bad for the animals, people, and planet is an easy way you can share what you stand for.

Case study: Chef Doug McNish

Former plant-based chef Doug McNish found himself in hot water when allegations of a toxic workplace culture for women and racist and transphobic remarks surfaced in a VICE article. Doug made a public apology on Instagram (which isno longer visible) and gave a statement to VICE World News, which was addressed in a subsequent article published in 2020.

This showed that because one is vegan or 100% plant-based, that does not mean they are ethical in other ways.

I’m not saying that sharing more content related to veganism (vs. his restaurants) would have excused his behaviour or created a better work culture, but if you act consistently according to your values across different environments—whether online or offline—it will benefit your public reputation in the long run.

I’ve since gotten to know Doug and I believe he’s not only a good person, but he’s also drastically changed his personal life and influenced people positively by sharing transparently and being more honest in his content. That’s difficult to do, compared to where he was four years ago.

Just one month after speaking on the Planted Expo’s stages (in Seattle, Toronto, and Vancouver), Doug announced on Instagram that he was no longer vegan nor plant-based. I was surprised to see this given that Doug’s career was based mainly on cooking vegan food as a chef, but not surprised because his content rarely addressed animal rights to begin with. He’s an amazing chef who touted a plant-based diet, but he wasn’t an ethical vegan.

Values are a north star for a company’s culture. Ignore them and you will see your audience quit when your employees do.

2. Offending customers or a group (even if unintended)

This could be an entire public relations masterclass. One of the best examples I have of a local plant-based restaurant that closed in a blaze of epic proportions is Heirloom Vegetarian (HV).

Case study: Heirloom (Vegetarian)

In January 2024, the restaurant announced it would serve meat to keep its doors open.

HV had great food and service every time I went, but even though it had an average 4.3* rating on Google, if you look at the reviews you’ll see that at some point the owner (we assume) started turning on customers leaving bad ratings and reviews. No one likes low reviews, but as a business, you have to be very careful about how you respond to them. If the complaints are valid, that’s an opportunity to change.

Back to early 2024. Of course, vegans did not take kindly to the restaurant serving meat. The owners should have expected this. What I didn’t expect was the absolute backlash that commenters received back from the owner. They were offensive and uncalled for. The company could have just not responded, deleted comments, or blocked commenters, but they fought back. And fighting back means drama!

The restaurant’s Instagram has since changed to a new account, but you can still see some responses to comments on their Facebook page. Below are just a few comments from Instagram that were shared in the Vancouver Vegans Facebook group months before the business closed.

**Trigger warning: offensive content below!**

And it went on and on. Many people thought bots were responding on social media, but between the Google reviews, Facebook, and Instagram, there’s no way a bot could handle all that AND be so offensive to selective customers, most of whom were vegans.

Not only do I wish I was making this up, I wish I had the time and resources to put a digital scrapbook of all their offensive comments together for educational purposes.

On top of that, HV didn’t take the “vegetarian” sign down from its location. There was also the case of a former employee of HV’s sister cafe, Heirloom juice bar, who was awarded $27,000 for being wrongly singled out on suspicion of theft by her manager, and an entire Reddit thread dedicated to former customer Deborah, who HV blamed on their website for their closure.

HV clearly did #1 and had no real values to establish a trusted foundation with customers and employees.

Case study: Ofra’s Kitchen

Since the events that began on October 7, 2023, it’s been interesting to see how both vegans and companies have responded to the Israel–Hamas war. Initially, content to support Israel and condemn the Palestinian terrorist group, Hamas, flooded social media. As support for Israel’s military came in and people got more educated about the plight of Palestine, the narrative has changed. Not turned around, but changed.

Enter the owner of (now sold vegetarian restaurant in Vancouver) Ofra’s Kitchen, Ofra Sixto, who is Jewish and began posting content to defend Israel. (She still runs a catering business). I don’t know anyone who would support Hamas, but I can see how her content offended not only Palestinians but those who support Palestine. Vegans posted in Facebook groups about how they stopped supporting the restaurant because of the content she shared.

I’m not saying that staying silent would have been the right thing for her to do, but she should have been aware of how non-Israeli followers or customers might feel or respond to her content.

In my book I shared the article “Why being inclusive helps advance the vegan movement” which is no longer up on Plant Based News. It shared the sentiment that inclusivity is important, especially if we want people to stop eating animals and become vegan.

3. Avoiding accountability for mistakes

All companies make mistakes. This is a given. How you respond to the mistake is everything. If you don’t have dedicated customer support staff, you must pay even more attention to this or it could turn into a public relations crisis.

Case study: Vecado

In my book, I shared how Vecado posted a photo of sled dogs to share how they performed on a plant-based diet, unaware of how their audience of vegans might feel about that photo. Vecado president Mikhail Goussev told the story:

Letting people know that vegan pet food works well for cats and dogs is a big part of our marketing effort. And when people hear about vegan pet food, they are skeptical and they ask for scientific studies or research confirming that vegan pet food provides the required nutrients. One of the studies we came across was related to Siberian Huskies, the sled dogs, which—according to the study—did well on a vegan diet, despite the difficult conditions. We thought, “Hey, if sled dogs who run twenty to forty mile marathons in the cold weather do well on a vegan diet, then house dogs will do well on a vegan diet too.” It was a great piece of research to share. And we shared!

This post immediately attracted a lot of attention, and not the good kind! By looking at the image of sled dogs in our posts, vegans from all over the world thought we promoted the sled dog industry, which was completely not what we were doing. Our customers started writing to us asking to take the post down. How could we deviate from our vegan values and support such a nasty industry? They sent links to videos and images explaining the horrors of the dog sled industry. We even got ourselves on a blacklist for one of the sled dog activist groups. We immediately realized that the way we presented the study was inappropriate, and we took it down.

Then was the time to make things right. We went to the community with new Facebook and Instagram posts apologizing and explaining that we don’t support the sled dog industry in any way. And I think people appreciated the sincerity and openness in us, and rewarded us with positive comments, likes, and tons of shares. We never saw anything like that! The second post where we made amends and shared our true vision resonated with the community and it was organically shared on social media.

Even though I think Vecado should have left the photo up and not deleted it, it rectified the mishap.

At this year’s Vegan Women Summit, Beyond Meat CEO Ethan Brown talked about how the company is redeveloping and re-releasing its products with cleaner ingredients after much backlash from animal ag in the media about the contents of plant-based meat alternatives (which is BS, because meat is also processed).

One example is an ad the Center for Consumer Freedom (funded in 1995 by cigarette company Philip Morris) put out during the Super Bowl that condemned the ingredients in plant-based meat.

Beyond Meat could have maintained the status quo and continued marketing its products as is, but since its target consumers are omnivores, not vegans, it’s doing the right thing in addressing consumer perception and making their products healthier. It recently released the third iteration of its sausage product.

Other companies have followed suit in removing methylcellulose from its products, which is one ingredient consumers tend to complain about.

Most companies won’t know they are making mistakes unless mass numbers of consumers point them out and force companies to change. Right now there are companies polluting our air, water, and land. Treating workers and animals like absolute sh*t. Dumping unsold products in landfills (which eventually go into oceans). Making products with PFAS and other toxins known to be harmful to health.

Companies keep doing it because consumers don’t know what is going on, and/or they are too busy with their own lives to do anything about it.

One of these “mistakes” is surcharges on plant-based milks at cafes that serve coffee. They should charge for cow’s milk because of its impact on animals and the environment, but it’s the ethical milks that we have to pay an extra $1 (or less) for.

Thankfully Switch4Good has been active in this area not just with cafes but in schools. In my book, I share how its publicity campaign resulted in Starbucks UK eliminating vegan milk surcharges in 2022.

Now we need all the other cafes in all the other countries to follow. You tell ’em, Chef Babette:

Avoid making mistakes. If you make them, apologize and be seen to do the right thing.

4. Marketing products for adults to children

Many of you will skip this step, but if you’re selling alcohol (beer, wine, spirits), tobacco or caffeinated products, cannabis, or psychedelics (natural or synthetic), you can learn from those who came before us.

Case study: Juul

In 2017, Juul made an electronic cigarette, now known as an e-cigarette. By the end of 2017, it had became the most popular e-cigarette in the US. Why? It made tobacco taste good through flavoured cartridges. And it inadvertently marketed the device to children.

I recently saw the docuseries Big Vape: The Rise and Fall of Juul on Netflix, which explains exactly how this all happened. The e-cigarettes were not supposed to be accessible to children, but they were. And Juul’s initial digital marketing campaigns had gorgeous people in their 20s having fun.

I subconsciously always knew this, but when you identify your target user in your marketing, people younger than them will want to buy your product. Little boys and girls look up to their older brothers and sisters, even if they get picked on. Pre-teens mimic teens. And who do teens mimic? People in their 20s.

Since 2019, over 2300 personal injury, government entity, tribal, and class action cases have been filed against Juul in federal court. In April 2023, Juul Labs announced its decision to pay US$462 million to settle legal claims over false marketing aimed at enticing young buyers. Payments will take place over the course of eight years. Juul has maintained its innocence despite what you’ll see in the docuseries.

The lesson here is, if your product or service is for people in their 20s or above, it’s not a bad idea to showcase an age group above them in your ads. If Juul had shown parents using e-cigarettes and the package was ugly, kids wouldn’t have touched them. Work Water probably learned from Juul and knows what it’s doing.

Case study: Prime

In 2022, YouTube sensations and amateur boxing rivals Logan Paul and Olajide Olayinka Williams Olatunji (KSI) created a line of energy drinks called Prime and a caffeine-free beverage called Prime Hydration.

Prime Energy drinks have a label indicating that they’re not recommended for individuals under 18 years old, those with caffeine sensitivity, and women who are pregnant or nursing. However, Logan and KSI’s popularity with children, combined with the colourful range of beverages, made it a—er—prime target for kids. Check out the commercial and judge for yourself:

In July 2023, Senator Chuck Schumer called on the FDA to investigate Prime for its marketing tactics and elevated caffeine content, pointing out that Prime has a higher caffeine content than a cup of coffee, a can of Coca-Cola, and a Red Bull.

Now maybe you haven’t experienced what your kid is like on caffeine, but you don’t have to. In his 20s, my brother once took two Red Bulls on the same day and told my dad someone was following him home. He became paranoid!

I can’t find anything about what the FDA has concluded, but a class action suit was filed in August 2023 after independent third-party testing determined the presence of PFAS chemicals in Prime Hydration’s grape flavour.

Logan denies the allegations. You might not think the company’s doing anything wrong, but when your company becomes the subject of an episode of South Park, maybe you should ask yourself what you could do better.

5. Not putting labels on food

This seems like a no-brainer, but it becomes contentious when vegan companies must decide how to label their food product. Studies have shown omnivores prefer these terms:

• Plant protein
• Plant-based protein
• Veggie
• 100% plant-based
• Plant-based
• Non-dairy
• 100% plants
• Dairy-free

“Vegan” comes in at about 35% purchase intent vs. the terms above which are 50% or more.

It wasn’t too long ago when my marketing brain believed that using one of the above terms was probably better because if you sell more vegan products, then maybe consumers will want to eat more plants and less animals. Hellmann’s made the switch this year; its vegan mayo will now be labelled as “plant-based.”

After several of these conversations happening in the Slack workspace at Vegan Business Tribe, I listened to episode #114 of The Vegan Business Tribe Podcast titled, “Should you call your business ‘vegan’?” Host David Pannell pointed out that if an establishment does not point out its products are vegan, it’s a lost opportunity to point out the importance of veganism as an ethical lifestyle.

Also, if you use a term like “plant-based,” you lump your business in the same group as products that may be vegan, but are owned by non-vegan parent companies (e.g. Lightlife owned by Maple Leaf Foods, and Silk owned by Danone).

When I developed my talk for Planted Expo Vancouver this year and wanted to share the fact that we needed to normalize the term “vegan,” I realized that applied to all businesses, too. My client Sun Flour Baking Company has used “vegan” on its package since inception in 1997, so if it can succeed through the evolving labelling trends, so can your company!

For god’s sake, label your food

As mentioned above, some companies are choosing to go label-free completely. Here’s a post someone in the Vancouver Vegans Facebook group shared about a local vegan bakery that sells plant-based ham & cheese croissant sandwiches.

Coincidentally, it’s the same business I blogged about here. Clearly, it has found the marketing tactic that works: not labelling any of its baked goods vegan or plant-based.

There’s a danger in this with food, cosmetics, or any other product that touches or gets absorbed by the skin or ingested by the body.

If you don’t disclose your ingredients, you risk killing or harming your customer if they don’t know they’re touching or ingesting something they’re allergic to. For example, if the ham & cheese sandwich is made of a certain nut, that could kill a customer who is allergic to it, but not to dairy. Sick or dead customers aren’t loyal customers. I hope this bakery has a good lawyer in case it gets sued.

I cited Heather Landex‘s book, Inclusive: The New Exclusive, in my book, which talks about the importance of food labelling. I write:

For consumer-packaged goods involving food, labelling can go a long way in keeping your customers informed and safe. It’s valuable and necessary for those with allergies, but it’s also more broadly helpful for inclusivity. Legally, products labelled “vegan” aren’t guaranteed to be free from milk or egg. Problems can occur when customers with allergies assume packaged products labelled as “vegan” are safe. If a product is labelled “may contain” or “traces of,” their products are not for those with allergies. Making everything from raw ingredients is the best way for a business to be in charge of its claims.

Landex suggests using “free-from” labels. In addition, she suggests food manufacturers “direct people to the information and make it as comprehensive as possible. For example, was it vegan/gluten-free/peanut-free and without disclaimers when it came in? Is that still true when it is served to the customer, or is it likely contaminated? If it is likely to be contaminated, state it. If it is unlikely to be contaminated, please state that too rather than defaulting to a nonspecific, automatic ‘may contain’ or ‘traces of’ disclaimer.”

PLEASE label your packages and menus with something that shows it does not contain animal products, and more importantly, if it contains common allergens.

Need to take marketing off your plate so you can focus on other aspects of your business? Read more about my services here and contact me if you’re ready to begin!